Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/225

 34. On Fame: see what their minds are like, what they avoid, what pursue. And, besides, that as the sands are constantly carried over one another, hiding what went before, so in our life what was before is very swiftly hidden by what is carried after.

35. 'Do you really imagine that an intelligence endowed with greatness of heart and a vision of all time and all reality thinks this mortal life to be a great thing?' 'Impossible', was his answer. 'Then such a man as that will consider even death not a thing to be dreaded, will he not?' 'Most assuredly.'

36. 'A King's part: to do good and to be reviled.'

37. It is absurd that a man's expression should obey and take a certain shape and fashion of beauty at the bidding of the mind, whereas the mind itself is not shaped and fashioned to beauty by itself.

38. 'Man must not vent his passion on dead things, Since they care nothing. '

39. 'May it be joy that you give to the immortal gods and to men.'

40. 'Life, like ripe corn, must to the sickle yield, And one must be, another cease to be.'

41. 'Were the gods careless of my sons and me, Yet there is reason here.'

42. 'For with me stand both Righteousness and Good.' 133